Thursday, November 03, 2005

In which I studiously avoid doing any actual work

YOU ARE VISITING THE OLD MALKIN(S)WATCH. THAT'S FANTASTIC. PLEASE VISIT THE NEW MALKIN(S)WATCH WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE.

This isn't the first time I've said this, but if you're not reading Neiwert all the time, then shame on you.

Throughout her career, her approach has been thesis-driven: She latches onto a potential story or scandal, settles on an angle to pursue, then sets out from the start to prove her thesis, ignoring or tossing aside all contradictory evidence along the way. This was the trend in her column-writing career at the Seattle Times, and it came to full fruition in her execrable In Defense of Internment, which ignored a mountain of evidence contradicting her thesis, and in the process became nothing less than a historical fraud.

Full disclosure: My approach is thesis-driven, too. "Malkin is wrong." The difference in my case is twofold: 1) I admit when that thesis is proven false; 2) I don't claim to be a journalist. Never have, never will. Unless I actually work as a journalist someday. But since I like to do things correctly, that would mean, like, training and stuff, and I'm kinda lazy.

Now her latest book is out, and the trend not only continues, it evidently intensifies, if the preliminary material she has made available on her Web site is any indication. [My copy is supposed to be arriving in the mail soon. Yes, dear readers, I'll be reading Malkin so you won't have to. It's a sacrifice, but someone has to make it.

Hey...that's my line! How dare you!

I kid. Neiwert was reading and fisking Malkin when I was in blogging diapers, and he does a perfect job here again.

Imagine what a fucked-up, thin-skinned whining little weasel Malkin has to be to write an entire book in order to get people to launch Denial of Service and vertical spamming attacks against the email accounts of people who had written her critical emails, profane or otherwise.

He's referring, of course, to Unhinged's back jacket, which contains "reviews" by people who have e-mailed mean things, including their full e-mail addresses.

It's not as though Malkin did this on the spur of the moment on her blog. No, she had lots of time to think about this through edits, rewrites, the editing of the galley prints and whatever, and at no point did she stop and think that this is exactly the kind of juvenile crap that has become her calling card. Not only is it stupid, but it's extremely premeditated stupidity. So premeditated that it's almost a form of Zen stupidity.

Honestly, when someone does something idiotic like that, especially when the idiot in question has been known to fire off a vicious email or two herself, even to the wrong person, as David Neiwert describes the "nastygram" Malkin fired off to Julie Chen, rather than Joie Chen, then we've just stepped into the vault where wingnuts keep their stockpile of extra-strength hypocrisy.

Just so you know, Myk, I have it on fairly good authority that the nastygrammer was none other than Jesse himself.

Meanwhile, DUDACKATTACK!!! (one of the best commenting handles in history) responds to Malkin's strange little list of average-joe lefty wackos with a list of corresponding actions from the right:

And yes, what this proves is that there are examples of unhingitude on both sides. But read Neiwert for why Michelle's argument that

I do not argue that we on the Right have never gone overboard in political word or deed. The book is about turning MSM conventional wisdom on its head and showing that the standard caricature of conservatives as angry/racist/bigoted/violence-prone crackpots is a much better description of today's unhinged liberals than of us.